The Best Bet (17 page)

“Perfect. My interview is Thursday morning. What would you like to do?”

Devour you and spend all night in bed with you.

What was wrong with her? She’d never been so passionate in all her life. And if they were left to their own devices, they’d definitely end up in bed. And then it would be just that much harder to get over him.

A sudden inspiration hit her, and it was the perfect solution. “I want you to have dinner at my home and meet my father. Is that okay with you?”

“
Claro que, sí,
” he said. Though, she thought she detected a wary note in his voice. “I’d be honored to meet your father.”

“I’m glad you want to come. Maybe I’ll cook something Puerto Rican for you.” She remembered their time on the mountainside and talking about her mother’s cooking.

“You’ll be staying at the Xanadu?” she asked.

“Where else?”

She laughed. “See you then.”

After she clicked off her phone, she congratulated herself on accomplishing what she’d set out to do—make certain they weren’t alone. Make certain the temptation to get physical was removed. But was that really what she’d been doing? If they wanted to be intimate, even meeting her father wouldn’t stop them.

Where there was a will, there was a way. Right?

Or was her motivation far more subtle and duplicitous? Her father didn’t approve of Rafael’s profession, and her father could be painfully blunt at times. Was she using her father as a shield, hoping he’d do the dirty work for her, hoping he’d drive Rafael away, once and for all?

She covered her face with her hands and took a deep breath. She didn’t like to think she was capable of doing something like that, using her father to solve her problems and not caring if he hurt Rafael’s feelings. But was that true? Or was she using both of them to propel her to New York where she could leave them both behind for good?

This was all too confusing, especially the way she yearned for Rafael when she knew she shouldn’t. She’d never felt like this about anyone before. And she wasn’t ready to feel this way, either. Her life was still ahead of her.

Maybe she just wanted her father’s blessing or some encouraging words that she could have both Rafael and her career. Maybe she wanted her father to see how really special Rafael was.

She just wished she knew what she wanted.

#

“Get Señor Escobedo some more
tostónes
, Adriana,” Miguel de Los Santos called to his daughter in the kitchen. “He’s devoured the ones you gave him, and looks ready for more.”

Rafael nodded and smiled, not wanting to speak with his mouth full. The
tostónes
were delicious, especially when dipped in the buttery garlic sauce Adriana had made. The whole meal had been a treat. They’d had a salad garnished with ripe avocado slices, pork chops, saffron rice, black beans, and the fried plantains, called
tostónes.

“Tell Rafael to save room for the
arroz con dulce
,” Adriana called from the kitchen.

“Rice pudding,” Miguel murmured, almost to himself, his tone wistful, “a specialty of my late wife’s. I haven’t had it in years.”

Rafael wiped his mouth with the starched linen napkin. “I guess Adriana doesn’t have much time to cook because of school and work.”

Her father gazed at him, and his blue-gray eyes were definitely watery looking. Rafael guessed that he was thinking of his late wife. Before dinner, Adriana had proudly shown Rafael pictures of her mother. Carmen de Los Santo, like her daughter, was lovely.

And Miguel de Los Santos was a nice-looking man, too. The older man wasn’t tall, but he held himself stiffly erect, his proud carriage making him appear taller. And his features were attractive, the silver-gray hair at his temples lending him a dignified air.

With two such attractive parents, it was no wonder that Adriana was such a beauty.

“No,” Miguel replied, “Adriana doesn’t cook much. Usually our housekeeper, Marta, does the cooking.”

“But Adriana wanted tonight to be special, she told me. She wanted to cook some of her mother’s dishes for you.” He cleared his throat and speared Rafael with his gaze. “Although, I don’t understand why.”

“Probably because we compared notes on our mothers’ cooking once. I explained about Mexican food, and she told me about Puerto Rican dishes.”

Adriana appeared at the doorway to the kitchen, holding a tray with desserts and coffee cups. “What are you two men talking about?”

Rafael laid his napkin aside and rose. “
Mira
, let me help you.”

“That’s okay, I’ve got it,” she said, placing the tray on the end of the table. “I need to get the coffeepot, though. I’ll be right back.”

His gaze followed the gentle sway of her hips beneath the demure cotton dress she’d worn for tonight. Flashes of her body, naked and coated with perspiration, rose before him, bringing a rush of heat to his groin and drying the inside of his mouth.

He sat down and sipped his glass of water. “What were we talking about?”

“Foolishness,” Miguel replied, “about cooking and such.” Clearing his throat again, he said, “I like to think I’m a modern man, Señor Escobedo.”

Where was her father going with this?

“Please call me Rafael.”

Her father inclined his head. “You must call me Miguel, then. I won’t stand on ceremony because, as I was saying, I like to think I’m a modern man. Women’s places are no longer in the kitchen and the nursery, you know. They have a wider role to play in today’s world. Their careers are just as important as men’s. Don’t you agree?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I’ve raised Adriana to believe in her abilities and pursue her ambitions. And I have every reason to believe she will make me proud.”

A chill chased down Rafael’s spine. Just as he’d guessed, this was where Adriana was getting her rigid views on life and how her career must come first. It was a powerful message, coming from her only living parent. But Rafael disagreed with her father—a career wasn’t everything.

Miguel might pride himself on how modern he was, but nothing was black and white in this world. Rafael had watched his mother and other women struggle to balance work and family. His mother had possessed an advantage, because she’d worked alongside her husband in a family business.

Even a backwater academician like himself was aware of the price of success in the corporate world. To succeed meant long hours and putting your personal life on hold. His twin brother was living proof, and it was one of the things Rafael liked least about the corporate world, especially for women. The way things were still structured, even in this new millennium, forced women to make a choice—family and limited success, or no family and plenty of success. He knew of some women who tried to do it all, but it was a constant balancing act.

So her father expected her to succeed in the corporate world. And Adriana wanted to please him and make him proud. But at what price?

Now he understood why Adriana kept emotional barriers in place. And she’d told him that her career had to come first, but he hadn’t known then how thoroughly she’d been conditioned to believe she must succeed at all costs.

Adriana placed a dish of pudding along with a coffee cup in front of him. “Earth to Rafael,” she teased. “Would you like some coffee?”

He smiled at her. “Please.” Then he turned his attention back to her father. He wanted to say what was on his mind, but he didn’t want to argue with the man.

He opted for the most diplomatic reply he could think of and said, “I agree with you,
señor.
Women have a right to their own careers. My mother worked alongside my father, establishing a chain of restaurants.”

“Ah, your parents are entrepreneurs. My compliments to them. I have a great respect for people who start and operate their own businesses. It is the American dream, is it not?”

“Yes, thank you. But my mother was fortunate,” Rafael couldn’t help adding. “Working in her own business gave her the flexibility to care for her family.”

“Flexibility? Why did your mother need flexibility? An efficiently run house will take care of itself, especially if you’re careful about selecting domestic help. Adriana’s mother worked full-time as a nurse with two small children in the house, and she never needed flexibility. She managed just fine.”

Adriana silently offered Rafael the sugar bowl and creamer. Her gaze snagged his, and she lifted her eyebrows, giving her head a shake. He took the sugar bowl but waved aside the creamer, and he thought he understood her silent message: that her mother’s full-time career, along with taking care of her family, hadn’t been as easy or as simple as her father claimed.

He wished she would say something, even if it was a memory she had of her mother being pulled between her career and family. But Adriana remained silent with her head down while she stirred her coffee.

Rafael spooned some sugar into his coffee. Letting his coffee cool, he took a bite of the rice pudding and said, “This is great, Adriana. My compliments to the cook.”

“Yes, well done,
m’ija
. It tastes just like your mother’s. Brings back memories.” He cleared his throat once more.

For several minutes they were all busy with their desserts and coffee. Rafael expected Adriana or her father to start speaking again, but when the unnatural silence began to wear thin, he decided to say something.

“I understand you have a very demanding career, Miguel.” Having been raised to be scrupulously polite to his elders, he had trouble with using her father’s first name. But he forced himself to do it, since her father had asked him to.

“Yes, I’m the executive director of a large resort. I’m, as the saying goes, ‘where the buck stops.’” He forced a semblance of laughter. “And what that means, in a nutshell, is that all the problems my subordinates can’t solve get dumped in my lap.”

“That does sound demanding and stressful,” Rafael replied.

Miguel sighed. “It’s a challenge. But I’m paid well,
very
well.” He paused and looked up from his rice pudding. “Adriana tells me you’re here for a job interview with the University of Las Vegas.
¿De verdad?”

“That’s correct. I had my final interview this morning, and I should be hearing back from them within the week.”

“I was wondering why you didn’t you enter your family’s business.” Miguel asked.

He’d heard this before from Adriana, and Rafael glanced at her for help. But she avoided his eyes and busied herself with gathering the empty pudding dishes. She rose and returned to the kitchen, which left him alone with her father.

And this time, he could sense the simmering tension in the air.

“I don’t like the restaurant business,” he said. “I’m afraid only my eldest brother, Carlos, decided to enter the business. The rest of us had other ambitions.”

“Well, it is fitting for the eldest to take over the business,” Miguel observed. “But I’m certain you could have grown the business if more of you had followed your parents’ example.” He sipped his coffee. “It just seems such a waste to have a viable family enterprise, and only the one son taking on the responsibility out of ... how many children did you say were in your family?”

The eldest son bit, how old school was that? So much for Miguel’s modern man stance.

But he shouldn’t put her father down; he should try to understand where the man was coming from, but it was getting harder by the minute.

“There are five of us, three boys and two girls. Of course, the girls are still in high school, but one wants to be a computer programmer and the other wants to be an architect. At least for now that’s what they want. Unlike me and my brothers, who always worked summers at the restaurants, my parents didn’t make my sisters work there.”

Miguel shook his head. “I don’t understand your parents’ permissive attitude. If I’d worked hard to start my own business, I would expect my children to work alongside me and take over.” He stroked his chin and added, “Well, maybe not my son, as he’s pursuing medicine. But I would certainly expect Adriana to help out, whether she liked the business or not.”

Rafael stiffened in his chair, and he could feel the back of his neck heating up. What right did this man have to put down the way his parents had raised their family. Who did Miguel de Los Santos think he was? Nothing in this world was absolute. If Carlos got sick of the food service business one day, he doubted his parents would mind if he sold their restaurants.

Not only that, he couldn’t stomach the man’s blatant hypocrisy. On the one hand, Miguel claimed he wanted Adriana to have her own career. On the other, he would expect her to work at a job even if she didn’t like it, just because it was a family business.

“I thought you said you wanted Adriana to have a career of her own. That’s how my parents feel, too, and that’s why they’ve allowed their children to decide what they wanted to—”

Miguel waved his hand dismissively. “It’s not the same thing. Adriana may decide her career because we don’t have a family business, but—”

“But it
is
the same thing. What’s important about a career is not what business you’re in, but doing what makes you happy. Loving your work is the most important thing.”

“Like loving to teach school?” Miguel’s face was flushed, and his eyes bulged from their sockets. “Like your job, Rafael Escobedo, loving the sound of your own voice, lecturing a bunch of adolescents? Loving it so much that they pay you nothing for it? Being a college professor isn’t a profession,” Miguel spat. “It’s a hobby. And you’d better marry someone who has a good job in a well-paying industry or you won’t be able to provide adequately for a family.”

Rafael rose from his chair and placed his napkin beside his plate. What Miguel said wasn’t the whole truth about academia as a career. It was true that it was hard to get started and new professors earned very little. Many dropped out for better paying jobs in industry. But if you loved teaching, as he did, and stuck it out, after time, you would become tenured and published and earn a comfortable lifestyle.

Despite knowing the truth about making a living in academia, he didn’t want to argue with Adriana’s father. His only thought was to get away before the conversation turned even nastier. And he knew it could easily get worse because he couldn’t believe how opinionated and hostile Adriana’s father was.